Imagine a “Magical Mystery Tour” in a night train, with surprise stops at different locations, musical encounters, paths through the woods, and images fleeting past the windows, like a magical escape bordering between dream and reality. NOCTURNE is a wonderful public space performance from the Italian-Swiss artist MASSIMO FURLAN, that will be presented during Tombées de la Nuit on the Rennes-Châteaubriant TER train line, which was recently saved from closure.

NOCTURNE is an incredible “ghost train” performance from Italian-Swiss artist MASSIMO FURLAN, which first debuted in 2014 at the Far de Nyon Festival (Switzerland) with the Nyon St Cergue train and the Fanfare de Mont-sur-Roll brass band and was produced for the first time this season by the Arsenic Theatre in Lausanne on the Swiss LEB train line (Lausanne-Echallens-Bercher). FURLAN’s work on this project further explores his reflections on the relationship between landscapes and music, on the representation of communities and his fascination for brass bands, which is a recurring feature of his performance projects.

MASSIMO FURLAN will take over a TER train line for a night “train movie” – a one-way trip through the countryside for three performances before an audience of 160 passenger-spectators. Music for NOCTURNE will be provided thanks to collaboration with local brass and concert bands, including l’Orchestre d’harmonie de Rennes (OHR), the Ensemble Musical des Cheminots Rennais concert band (EMCR) and the St Cécile de Janzé concert band.

It all starts at the train station in Rennes, as passengers board a specially chartered night train. A rhythm sets in as successive images appear at the windows of the carriage. They look out for shadows and prick up their ears to discover the brass bands playing in the night. In this strange 3D sound and image production (which FURLAN himself calls “long images”), the moving research and experimentation space uses theatre tricks (light, sound, movement) to create a simple and festive encounter. There’s no story or directions, but a shared projection of subjectivity and a collective play on the senses and sensations that clearly place the artist in the realm of contemporary art.

This is a dreamlike train ride that is all about the pleasure of being together and inspires encounters around music.

BIOGRAPHY

Whether he’s wearing Michel Platini’s jersey (Numéro 10, Prolongation, Foot), roaming the streets in a Superman costume (Slow Life) or organising an intellectual stroll performance on a carrousel (Après le fin, le congrès), MASSIMO FURLAN’s work always carries an element of humour. After training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, where he learned the classic art forms he continues to use and exhibit in art galleries and museums across Switzerland and Europe, he quickly became interested in performance art and collaborated with several dance and theatre companies as a set designer. In 2003, he founded his own live art company, Numero23Prod, to explore performance art while ignoring the boundaries between different art forms. He reinterprets icons, addresses the issue of failure and disparity between models and reality, creating a poetic and burlesque effect while telling his own story. For Hospitalités (2017 production) he took over the village of La Bastide Clairence, in French Basque country, to examine how fiction is created around the extremely current issue of how migrants are welcomed and settled. From Old Station Heroes, to We are the World, and Tree of Codes, etc., MASSIMO FURLAN’s performances explore popular events and the concept of teamwork, and the themes of image, time, childhood, memory and play, immersing us in a quirky yet touching, and funny yet melancholic world that combines visual, performance and contemporary art. The artist makes the encounter, place and role of the spectator a priority for these true emotional journeys, which gives him his rightful place at TOMBÉES DE LA NUIT